5x15

Why have we lost our ability to focus? What are the causes? And, most importantly, how do we get it back? Join 5x15 to hear about Johann Hari's journey to the heart of this problem and the solutions he found along the way in conversation with the one and only Stephen Fry. Crucially, they will talk about how – as individuals, and as a society – we can get our focus back, if we are determined to fight for it. Stephen Fry has described Stolen Focus as "a beautifully researched and argued exploration of the breakdown of humankind's ability to pay attention." Johann Hari is the author of two New York Times best-selling books: Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs and Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions. His books are being developed for film and television, have been translated into 28 languages and have received praise from a very broad range of people including Oprah, Hillary Clinton, Tucker Carlson, Elton John, Naomi Klein and G

Hannah Lowe's third full collection of poems, The Kids, won the 2021 Costa Poetry Award and went on to be named Costa Book of the Year, and was also shortlisted for the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize. Hannah taught for a decade in an inner-city London sixth form. At the heart of her award-winning book of compassionate and energetic sonnets are fictionalised portraits of ‘The Kids’, the students she nurtured. But the poems go further, meeting her own child self as she comes of age in the riotous 80s and 90s, later bearing witness to her small son learning to negotiate contemporary London. Lowe interrogates the acts of teaching and learning with empathy and humour, exploring the universal experience of what it is to be taught, to learn and to teach. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.co

Kate Humble joins us to talk about her debut cook book Home Cooked: Recipes From The Farm. After the huge success of the documentary series 'Escape To The Farm With Kate Humble', this is a celebration of simple, seasonal home cooking full of flavour, comfort and joy, with more than 100 recipes from the kitchen table, inspired by her rural life at home in Wales. Kate Humble is a writer, smallholder, campaigner and one of the UK’s best-known TV presenters. She started her television career as a researcher, later presenting programmes such as ‘Animal Park’, ‘Springwatch’ and ‘Autumnwatch’, ‘Lambing Live’, ‘Living with Nomads’, ‘Extreme Wives’, ‘Back to the Land’, ‘A Country Life for Half the Price’ and ‘Escape to the Farm’. Her other books include Friend for Life, Humble by Nature, A Year of Living Simply and Thinking on My Feet. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5

Monica Ali’s new novel, Love Marriage, is her first in a decade. Funny and poignant, sharp and sympathetic, it is a tour de force of storytelling that has won rave reviews. Centring on two young, engaged-to-be-married medics, Yasmin Ghorami and Joe Sangster, it is a clash of cultures story that explores who we are, how we love and how we can come to understand one another in today’s Britain. Monica Ali is the author of four previous novels including the Booker Prize shortlisted Brick Lane, 'Written with a wisdom and skill that few authors attain in a lifetime' (Sunday Times). 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Osman Yousefzada is a celebrated multi-disciplinary artist whose global fashion label is worn by celebrities including Beyoncé, Lupita Nyong’o, Thandiwe Newton, Gwen Stefani, Emma Watson and Freida Pinto. In The Go-Between, his coming-of–age memoir, he describes his upbringing amidst a conservative Pakistani/Afghan Pashtun community. Living in the red-light district of central Birmingham, he had to balance Western school teachings with cultural traditions, weaving between worlds and struggling with the dual burdens of racism and community expectations. Osman has exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Design Museum London, Ringling Museum in Florida and Cincinnati Art Museum in Ohio. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15storie

Angela Saini is an independent British science journalist and the author of three books. She presents radio and television programmes on the BBC and her writing has appeared in The Sunday Times, Nature, New Scientist, National Geographic and Wired. She has won a number of national and international journalism awards. She has also been a judge for the Orwell Prize for non-fiction. Her latest book, Superior: The Return of Race Science, was published in 2019 to widespread critical acclaim and named a book of the year by the Financial Times, Guardian, The Telegraph and Sunday Times. Her previous book, Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, has been translated into thirteen languages. Both are on university reading lists across the world. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x1

Paul Mendez is a London-based novelist, essayist and screenwriter. Born in 1982 and raised in the Black Country, the eldest of four children by Jehovah’s Witness parents of second-generation Jamaican heritage, Mendez disassociated himself from the Witnesses while still a teenager, before moving to Kent to study automotive engineering, then London to study acting, leaving both courses before the end of the first year. After reading James Baldwin’s 1968 novel Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone in the summer of 2002, Mendez began keeping a journal, maintaining it while occupied variously as a sex worker, waiter and sometime journalist. Mendez has contributed to Glass, Esquire, The Face, British Vogue, the Times Literary Supplement and the Brixton Review of Books, and his work has been included in anthologies by Goldsboro Books and Daunt Books. In 2020, Dialogue Books published Mendez’s debut novel Rainbow Milk – examining queer, Black British lives from the Windrush generation to the aftermath of the Brexit

Ben Rawlence has written for publications including the Guardian, London Review of Books, New York Times, New York Times Book Review and the New Yorker. While working for Human Rights Watch in the Horn of Africa he became fascinated by the Dadaab refugee camp, which became the subject of his acclaimed 2016 book, City of Thorns. His new book, THE TREELINE, is a powerful and beautifully written blend of reportage, nature, travel and science writing. Telling the story of our changing climate through six species of tree, it documents the devastating effects of human activity – and offers reasons for hope. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Emma Gannon is a Sunday Times bestselling author, speaker, novelist and host of the award-winning creative careers podcast in the UK, Ctrl Alt Delete, which has reached almost 10 million downloads. She has blogged since 2009; podcasted since 2016 and is the author of five books, including her award-winning debut novel OLIVE. Her new book Disconnected will be published in January 2022 in the UK and US. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

5x15 presents: Isabel Allende - novelist, feminist & philanthropist - in conversation about her new novel Violeta with journalist Alex Clark Isabel Allende is one of the most widely-read authors in the world, having sold more than 75 million books which have been translated into 42 languages. Join 5x15 for this exclusive launch event for her unmissable new novel Violeta. Allende won worldwide acclaim in 1982 with the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits. Since then, she has authored more than twenty-five bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including Daughter of Fortune, Island Beneath the Sea, Paula, The Japanese Lover, A Long Petal of the Sea, and her most recent memoir, The Soul of a Woman. Allende’s works always entertain and educate readers interweaving imaginative stories with significant historical events. Her new novel is the epic story of Violeta del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century. Vi

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers in conversation about her breath-taking debut novel, The Love Songs Of W.E.B Du Bois, which chronicles the journey of multiple generations of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era. Set to be one of the most talked about books of the year, it was an instant New York Times top 10 bestseller and Oprah Book Club Choice, and has drawn comparisons to the work of Toni Morrison. She is is a fiction writer, award-winning poet and essayist, and teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Oklahoma. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Huma Abedin often made the headlines as a long-time aide to Hillary Clinton during her years as First Lady, US Senator, presidential candidate, Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential Nominee. In her memoir Both/And, Huma tells her inspiring story coming of age as an American Muslim, the daughter of Indian and Pakistani scholars who split their time between Saudi Arabia, the United States and the UK. She also writes candidly about family, legacy, identity, faith, motherhood and her marriage to former congressman Anthony Weiner. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Michael Ignatieff is a Canadian writer, philosopher, historian, professor and former politician. His award-winning books have been translated into twelve languages, and in 2016 he was named a Member of the Order of Canada. Arriving at one of the darkest moments in recent times, ON CONSOLATION is an uplifting and deeply moving portrait of men and women across history who have found the courage to face their fates and continue, unafraid. Asking how we console each other - and ourselves - in an age of unbelief, it draws on sources from the books of Job to the lives of Albert Camus and Primo Levi to show how, in extremity, we can recover hope and resilience. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Join 5x15 to hear bestselling author James Rebanks as he reflects on his prize-winning new book, English Pastoral; the countryside we’ve inherited, and the legacy we want to leave. James Rebanks is a shepherd based in the Lake District, where his family have lived and worked for over six hundred years. His No.1 bestselling debut, The Shepherd's Life, won the Lake District Book of the Year, was shortlisted for the Wainwright and Ondaatje prizes, and has been translated into sixteen languages. His second book, English Pastoral, was also a Top Ten bestseller and was named the Sunday Times Nature Book of the Year. Heralded as a ‘masterpiece’ by the New Statesman, it was shortlisted for the Ondaatje prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, and longlisted for the Rathbones Folio prize. With thanks for your generous support for 5x15 online. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.c

Best-selling and ground-breaking authors Emma Dabiri – What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition – and Shon Faye - The Transgender Issue - discuss their work, our current divisions and how we can come together to tell a new story and unite seemingly disparate areas. In What White People Can Do Next, Emma Dabiri’s best-selling manifesto tackling our current discourse on race, she argues that we require “an understanding, not so much of an intersectionality of identities, but an intersectionality of issues. Linking our struggles together is the work of coalition-building, a vision wherein many people can see their interests identified and come together for a common good. We can start to tell new stories, rather than fall back along fault lines that were designed to divide us, to better exploit us.” Shon Faye’s debut book, The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice, is an urgent manifesto for change, calling for justice and solidarity between all marginalized people and minorities. Through

Rationality matters. Steven Pinker discusses a user’s guide to rationality during an epidemic of unreason. Join 5x15 for an enlightening discussion between renowned experimental cognitive scientist Steven Pinker and behavioural economist, broadcaster and writer Tim Harford. In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing? In his new book, Rationality, Steven Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species - cavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the p

Jay Rayner is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, author and jazz pianist. However he is best known - and beloved - as the restaurant critic of the Observer. His new book, Chewing the Fat, is a hilariously rollicking collection of his funniest columns, in which he also attempts to answer such pressing questions as ‘Does bacon improve everything?’ and ‘Is gin really the devil’s work?’. Hailed by Nigella Lawson as ‘Rayner at his rambunctious best: upfront, full fat, and always deliciously written’, these are dispatches from decades spent at the very frontline of eating. Joining Jay in this celebration of gargantuan appetites, glorious wit and deliciousness in book form is Dr Annie Gray, author of the official companion book to The Kitchen Cabinet and one of Britain’s leading food historians. Dr Annie Gray is one of Britain’s leading food historians. She works as a broadcaster, author and consultant. You may have heard her on BBC Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet, or seen her cooking up Victorian pies or Tudor s

Raynor Winn's first book, The Salt Path, charted her extraordinary and uplifting journey around the South West Coastal Path, as she battled homelessness, financial uncertainty and her husband Moth’s terminal illness. The book spent 80 weeks in the Sunday Times best seller charts and has inspired millions with its tale of the healing power of nature, resilience and human endurance. She comes to 5x15 to talk about her new book, The Wild Silence, one couple’s inextricable connection to the land, and the new challenge of rewilding a Cornish farm. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Hannah Rothschild - award winning writer, documentary filmmaker and businesswoman - returns to 5x15 to discuss her latest acclaimed novel, House of Trelawney.

Why do we consume the way we do? Aja Barber is a writer and stylist with over 230,000 followers on Instagram, whose work explores the connections between contemporary consumerism, colonial oppression and climate change. Her new book is called Consumed. Through her own story, she explores the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and confronts the uncomfortable history of the textile industry- challenging us to become citizens not consumers and to recognise the need for collective action and change. Her new book is called Consumed. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories